New Vaccine Could Protect Against Alzheimer’s

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — A vaccine that could protect against Alzheimer’s disease may be heading for clinical trials.

“I really wanted to take this as a challenge to see if we could develop any sort of treatment,” says Kiran Bhaskar, an associate professor at the University of New Mexico.

The vaccine targets a specific protein commonly found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s.

(Credit: KDKA)

“What we chose to pursue was a specific region of tau, as you saw pathological tau — the red structures — that are common in Alzheimer’s disease. We wanted to make a vaccine against that,” says Nicole Maphis, a Ph.D. student at the University of New Mexico.

Antibodies form against tau, and in the University of New Mexico’s studies of mice with Alzheimer’s disease, the researchers claim the protein clears. Because the brain has protective mechanisms to keep circulating proteins, like antibodies, out, this is a challenge.